David @ Tokyo

An Australian Whale expert has conceeded that "Japan's application to kill more humpback and minke whales will not affect the population".

Mind you, I don't know why the media has to ask a whale expert about it - it's pretty basic stuff. I noted previously that 10 humpbacks represents a miniscule proportion of the population, which has also been described by other Australian researchers as "booming", at a rate of 10% per year.

Nonetheless, this hasn't stopped the expert in question from making a joke of himself - he was also quoted voicing concern about future expansion of any humpback whaling, saying "It just depends whether the Japanese manage to turn this into a full-scale commercial harvest, in which case we'll be in real strife."
A nonsense, unfortunately, to go with his reality. 1 from 2 is not bad though, I suppose.

What the media should be reporting is that any "full-scale commercial harvest" would be limited by catch quotas arranged under the IWC's "Revised Management Procedure".
There is no doubt that any future commercial whaling under the highly conservative RMP would be sustainable.
But, as usual, the media prefers to propagate uninformed supposition rather than reality.

Labels: humpbacks, Whaling